The Oklahoma State Capitol is easy enough to spot from the road, but is more a sprawling concrete island. A loop road surrounds the capitol complex, nearly cutting it off from the surrounding neighborhood. Eventually I just parked in one of the massive surface lots and wandered onto north lawn. I saw no one else.
The capitol boasts the newest dome of any statehouse, dating to 2002. A statue of an Indian warrior called the Guardian tops the dome.
The capitol grounds boast a unique feature – a working oil well, befitting Oklahoma’s status as a major energy state. I’m somewhat surprised Texas has not followed suit. But the oil well has less to do than politics than Oklahoma plotting its capital city before realizing it sat on a vast oilfield.
Most of the buildings that hem in the capitol are unremarkable, constructed in an era when government began spending little on architecture.
The well just stands south of the capitol building and doesn’t even count as the most interesting item on the north lawn. That goes to the Meeting Place Monument. The monument includes a mound of earth and granite, a sculpture at its center, and flags for the 36 tribes of Oklahoma. It might not sit far from the oil rig but feels miles away. The monument also keeps Oklahoma's history as Indian Territory in full view.
South of downtown lie numerous historic neighborhoods with architecture from the early 20th century. Heritage Hill has many memorable mansions and smaller but equally stately homes.
Downtown looms large at this point, but the Oklahoma City National Memorial will always loom larger than anything else built here. April 19, 1995 - I remember that morning, working on my senior English paper over spring break.
My mom called and told me to turn on the television, and there stood the remains of the Oklahoma City’s Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, much of the building sheered away by a truck bomb. The rescuers went to work immediately, their efforts unfolded live. Soon we would learn of the heinous men who plotted the bombing (they were arrested for other reasons barely 90 minutes after the explosion).
What always stood out was the daycare center; the bomber parked his truck in a spot under the daycare, and 15 of the 19 children killed were in the daycare center. Casualties totaled 168 dead and 680 wounded. No one had seen domestic terrorism on this scale before. The Murrah building was torn down later that year, and the monument opened in February 2001.
The memorial does not mark the time of the actual bombing, 9:02 a.m. One gate marks 9:01 and the other marks 9:03, a reminder of what changed between. A reflecting pool lies between the gates. On the south lawn, metal chairs mark every person killed in the bombing and correspond to their locations in the building. The north lawn includes the survivor tree, which sat on the federal building grounds and lived though the bombing and fires that followed.
The museum in the adjacent Journal Record building was closed for the holiday. Across the street stands And Jesus Wept, a memorial sculpture on the grounds of St. Joseph’s Old Cathedral, the catholic church severely damaged in the blast.
The memorial stays with those who visit. A wall of children’s handprints from around the world, a remembrance wall in front of the memorial … it can turn emotionally overwhelming quickly. People still came, not in large numbers, but the memorial remains an open wound on downtown. I suspect the bombing hit people hard because of its location – if terrorists could strike Oklahoma City, they could hit anywhere
Oklahoma City has another placid place Scissortail Park, just south of downtown. The lake and surrounding wetlands contrast with the glass and steel. Even on a cloudy day, a few beams of sun were enough to get one resident turtle onto the rocks. These plazas drew more people on Thanksgiving.
No matter how much time one takes in Scissortail Park, odds are strong that the memorial a mile north will stay on your mind a great while longer.
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